1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a mattress or a mattress-pillow combination and components used therein.
2. Related Art
More specifically it concerns mattresses and mattress-pillow combinations that are adapted to a person, so that the person lies more comfortably and/or has more restful sleep and/or in order to reduce or avoid physical complaints relating to body posture and/or the presence of pressure points or overloads.
Mattresses are already known that are made up of a mattress core and a comfort layer, whereby the comfort layer on the lying side is divided into a number of comfort zones with different hardnesses in order to support the body of the person lying on the mattress as well as possible.
In known mattresses these comfort zones can, for example, be in the zone of the head, shoulders, lumbar region, hips, thighs, legs or feet.
Such a mattress is known from DE 20.2006.001.350 in which the position of the different zones can be adjusted to the height of the person.
It is hereby only possible to adapt the positions of the harder and softer zones to the height of the person, but it is not possible to adjust the hardness of the zones for the person, they remain the same for everybody.
Mattresses in which the hardnesses of the various zones are adjusted for the mattress user are also known.
These mattresses are traditionally made by the people for whom they are being made lying on a number of test mattresses with adjustable comfort zones, and a personalised mattress is made on the basis of their preferences, by making some comfort zones harder and some comfort zones softer.
This has the disadvantage that the mattress cannot be adapted to the varying requirements of the person over time.
For example during the lifetime of the mattress, the weight of the person may change, such that the comfort zones are no longer correctly situated with respect to the body.
As a result of these bodily changes, the mattress provides inadequate support for the body, which can result in many physical complaints and sleeplessness.
This method also has the disadvantage that while a mattress that feels comfortable is obtained, this method certainly does not guarantee a healthy, restful and overload-avoiding sleeping position.
A variant of such a method is described in WO 03/084368, in which on the basis of a multitude of data, to be measured by a person himself, the hardnesses of the comfort zones of the mattress are individualised by providing the mattress with sections of different hardnesses. In this way the aim is to create a healthy and comfortable sleeping position for the person.
However, it is not clear here how to determine what hardness the pieces have to have. Firstly, it is not clear what a healthy and comfortable sleeping position means in terms of body posture, and thus what characterises such a healthy and comfortable sleeping position, in brief what is the objective to be achieved.
It is also not clear what the procedure is to adapt the desired hardnesses of the individual pieces so that this objective is achieved.
A further disadvantage is that the comfort feeling experienced by the person not only depends on the mattress, but also on the base on which the mattress lies, for example the elastic properties of the slats on which the mattress lies.
This thus means that if a person wants a mattress for a different type of bed-base format than the one used for the test lying, the results will be unreliable.
It is known from DE 296.17.420 that the hardness of a pillow is important for a healthy sleeping position. This document thus published a pillow whose hardness can be adjusted.
Just as with the mattresses described above, however, it is not clear how the properties of such a pillow have to be selected to achieve the desired result, certainly not in combination with a mattress.